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Posted: Mon, March 15, 2004
Small Business Compliance ServiceBy Basheera KhanCroner, part of Wolters Kluwer (UK), is one the UK's leading providers of business information, advice and support. The company publishes over 250 information packages in the areas of compliance and best practice, and its name is synonymous with guidance to customers in the human resources, health & safety, trade & transport, health & education, small business, accountancy & tax, and manufacturing & construction sectors. Croner's customers range from small businesses to large corporations and government departments. Croner's information solutions are available in a range of formats, from loose-leaf manuals, newsletters and magazines to software support packages, as well as Internet guides, and telephone helplines. I had the chance to try out the Small Business Compliance Service and was initially left with very mixed feelings indeed. Croner's Small Business Compliance touts itself as "a practical, step-by step electronic service" that aims to steer SMEs through all essential small business procedures and help companies remain within the law. This much is true; the application I installed is absolutely crammed with useful information encompassing the complete life cycle of a small business, from start-up to winding up. The software also features a HotDocs component which allows you to complete forms included in the software, either through a series of questions, or by filling the forms in directly on screen. This speeds up and streamlines the often tedious process of form-filling which is so frequently required in day-to-day running of a company. Double clicking any of the HotDocs icons in the software will kick off the assembly process for your chosen form. Each section features case studies, practical examples and bulleted checklists. Customisable electronic forms, standard letters, model policies and contracts enable you to perform necessary tasks quickly and simply. Also included in the service is Croner's Business Planner software. Contents include articles on Start up; Taxation; Employment; Health and Safety; Finance; E-business; Contract and Sale of Goods Law and VAT The package is yours for just under £200 inclusive of VAT and postage and packaging. You can view it on approval for a trial period of 28 days, which gives you access to the software on CD-ROM, but not to the online aspect, which is, I believe, where the real value of this service comes into play. The full subscription service makes the most of the online medium, allowing for monthly e-mail updates on business-related topics which the user is interested in, frequent updates of the information included in the software package, the business support helpline, quarterly updated CD-ROMs and of course, the much vaunted Croner Business Planner software. There are also a few online extras: legislation trackers in the sectors of employment, environment and health & safety, and the very handy Key Rates and Data information, which covers topics such as payroll, income tax, national insurance, pensions, social security, statistics, government schemes and a directory of useful addresses. For all its ups, the Croner Small Business Compliance Service has a few downs. For starters, the software package has a very dated look and feel. It's impossible to customise the product's appearance, which means that you're left using a programme that feels ever so slightly dodgy. On the plus side, the zoom functionality will allow for most visual accessibility issues. Thankfully, the content is accurate and relevant, which goes a long way to setting one's mind at ease regarding usefulness and useability. But don't hold out any hope of finding region-specific information - it's all completely from the point of view of compliance with overall UK law. The Help notes refer to the software as 'an electronic book' - granted, that's the way Croner may see its baby, but to my mind, it lent a very antiquated feel to the product as a whole - almost as if these notes were written at a time when businesspeople were afraid of technology, and didn't really understand the jargon of the day. In today's context, an e-book is a very different thing from a software package as complex as the Croner Small Business Compliance service. Some choice rephrasing to bring the overall tone of the guide into the 21 st Century would not hurt. Lastly, the online aspects of the Croner products aren't that easy to get to. Access to the site is managed using a customer ID and password - all case-sensitive, which can lead to the niggling need to enter and then re-enter the information when you discover that Caps Lock is on or off, as the case may be. But on the whole, the service appears well worth every penny; while it is true that most of the information can be found by anyone with enough time and the right research methods, no entrepreneur can really justify using valuable time and resources to chase up these strands of information individually, when Croner has already assembled them in one place. ContactsCronerWeb: http://www.croner.co.uk |
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